BuzzH
Well-known member
My Dad, Brother, and 2 nephews came down yesterday to help my oldest Nephew Aiden with his cow permit.
We left early this morning and right at daylight we found a herd of maybe 100 or so. Another hunter was making a move on them so we decided to move to another area. Didn't take long and we found another pretty large herd with several bulls in it, nothing real big, but a couple decent 6 points.
We made 3 stalks and each time, we couldn't get closer than about 350 yards, just out of comfortable shooting range. We went out to the range last night and Aiden shot really well on steel out to 250 yards. Anyway, we finally found a small ridge that allowed us to make our 4th stalk. That one netted us getting 230 yards just above them. Aiden and I crawled up and sorted through the entire herd, looking for an obvious cow that didn't have a calf. We eventually settled on 3 cows and a bull that were off from the main herd by quite a ways. We noticed that for the most part, the cows/calves were bedded very close to each other so we felt good that the 3 were all cows without calves. We waited for about 30 minutes until one of the cows got up to shift position and feed a bit.
Aiden got set on the cow, that was 231 yards away, and I told him to hold on the upper 1/3rd of the body, just like he'd done on the steel the night before and slowly squeeze the trigger. The 7-08 cracked and a 120 grain nolser ballistic tip was on the way. I was watching through the binoculars and saw the bullet hit right on the near shoulder. The herd stood up, about 120 or so in all and started to mill around. I kept my binoculars on the cow he shot and she went about 30 yards, started to sway, and down she went. The rest of the herd milled around some more and walked over the ridge, in no hurry at all. He made a great shot, busted the near shoulder and we found the ballistic tip just under the hide about 3 inches behind the off shoulder. Not sure how old this cow is, but clearly well past 10, teeth are about gone and she was barren. Took us a whopping 4 hours into the season, but we got it done. Elk is currently all boned and in the freezer, good start to the 2019 season.
Aiden with his second elk:
Dad and the 2 nephews:
Posse:
We left early this morning and right at daylight we found a herd of maybe 100 or so. Another hunter was making a move on them so we decided to move to another area. Didn't take long and we found another pretty large herd with several bulls in it, nothing real big, but a couple decent 6 points.
We made 3 stalks and each time, we couldn't get closer than about 350 yards, just out of comfortable shooting range. We went out to the range last night and Aiden shot really well on steel out to 250 yards. Anyway, we finally found a small ridge that allowed us to make our 4th stalk. That one netted us getting 230 yards just above them. Aiden and I crawled up and sorted through the entire herd, looking for an obvious cow that didn't have a calf. We eventually settled on 3 cows and a bull that were off from the main herd by quite a ways. We noticed that for the most part, the cows/calves were bedded very close to each other so we felt good that the 3 were all cows without calves. We waited for about 30 minutes until one of the cows got up to shift position and feed a bit.
Aiden got set on the cow, that was 231 yards away, and I told him to hold on the upper 1/3rd of the body, just like he'd done on the steel the night before and slowly squeeze the trigger. The 7-08 cracked and a 120 grain nolser ballistic tip was on the way. I was watching through the binoculars and saw the bullet hit right on the near shoulder. The herd stood up, about 120 or so in all and started to mill around. I kept my binoculars on the cow he shot and she went about 30 yards, started to sway, and down she went. The rest of the herd milled around some more and walked over the ridge, in no hurry at all. He made a great shot, busted the near shoulder and we found the ballistic tip just under the hide about 3 inches behind the off shoulder. Not sure how old this cow is, but clearly well past 10, teeth are about gone and she was barren. Took us a whopping 4 hours into the season, but we got it done. Elk is currently all boned and in the freezer, good start to the 2019 season.
Aiden with his second elk:
Dad and the 2 nephews:
Posse:
